What do bubbles mean?

[williamh]

Do bubbles like  those necessarily mean the vase is old or can it be faked?

[Stan]

What you see in this photo is called pitting or bubble bursts, "bubble burst" are bubbles that burst during the firing but it is only in the glaze and dose not reach the Kaolin under the glaze, and is in 3 of the Qing dynasties, I believe Kangxi, Yongzheng and the Qianlong periods, this needs a loop magnifier to see clearly that the burst is only in the glaze, pitting looks similar but can be larger and always exposes the Kaolin underneath the glaze and over time dirt gets in these areas and cakes on over time and dose not wash off. and yes these can be faked that is why we need to look and the whole piece and not just one detail the whole tells the story.

[williamh]

More pictures of the same vase. How old is it?

[peterp]

I'm afraid this could be another case of over-painting, that means an older vase was possibly repainted. The colors used for this do often have no transparency and are very thick, as they have to hide what is below. Even if the body is old, as it seems, the decoration is hardly more than a few decades old.